Partial solution if you cannot disable the Java browser plugin for whatever reason

There is only need to be concerned about deliberately malicious sites, or non-malicious sites which may have been hacked. If you really can't avoid Java applets, switch to using Firefox and install the noscript plugin. Only allow Java for trusted sites. You can even permit specific objects (applets) on a trusted site, so a hacker would have to deploy a malicious version of the specific applet(s) you have permitted on a trusted site in order to compromise your security.

Whole disk encryption

Any employer with a serious interest in securing sensitive data on laptops and stopping the use of USB thumbdrives etc should license PGP Desktop, it works a treat for 200 quid perpetual. Absolutely no excuses! What worries me is the new government scheme where GPs are going to club together to provision hospital services instead of PCTs. As everything continues to decentralise in the NHS, who is going to manage IT practices across a squillion different organisations?

Steady on bish...

Good luck to him

but he seems just a bit obsessed. What happened to him? It must have been terrible!! Some of the airports are out of town, well, check on google maps etc. and make your own mind up whether its worth the saving. You get what you pay for with ryanair, they've never been late in my experience. Why? They don't hang around for stragglers, they just close the gate at the stated time and that's it! Fair enough! Don't want to subsidise other people's luggage? Fine, me neither!

WTF???

RoR versus C++, Java

RoR is something of a black box, and Ruby itself is a slow, interpreted language. This stack is great for low-volume websites, don't get me wrong, but it won't scale up to many millions of users. That's where particularly Java has the edge, with a huge choice of mature APIs such as Spring and Hibernate, the likes of GWT for the front end, and multi-gigabyte caching technology e.g. Coherence.

Interesting but so what?

They reported it to Linus and co mid-June, kept quiet and waited for it to be fixed in the kernel, then published their paper. It's only sensible to have fixed it but no need to panic. You have to remember that in Linux, you can't download a dodgy executable from the internet (or attached to an email) and run it by double clicking it (or just opening the email, or following the link). Nobody using Linux installs dodgy software either because they don't need to - it's all free and open source, from a trusted source (the package manager). This is why "exploits" such as this don't get exploited in Linux.

It needs DRM because it's on-demand

".. they already broadcast without DRM or any form of encryption over the air. You can't possibly claim that offering it on the internet is any different." Its different because its on-demand. With iPlayer you don't have to wait for the broadcast so you can painstakingly tape the whole of Little Britain Series 1 or whatever, instead of having to purchase the DVD.

There are plenty of reasons why DRM is broken and most of the content can be found elsewhere but if we accept that DRM is required here as an assumption, then I can understand why the BBC is using DRM, even though I'm a Linux user at home. It's to protect their international sales of DVDs etc. Now I can run closed-source & proprietary software with an "incompatible license" under Linux, e.g. ATI's video drivers, so as and when BBC produce their own codec & DRM they can port it to Linux without having to make the source code available under GPL. Unfortunately there is nothing they can get from the open market right now for that purpose, hence they've gone with WMP DRM initially.